Latest Ava DuVernay Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• When I look in the mirror, I see a woman who is happy.

  Ava DuVernay

  Source: aalbc.com

• Filmmakers need to realize that their job isn't done when they lock picture. We must see our films through. Studios no longer do this for a large percentage of films. The odds that your film will get a major campaign are dim these days. So you must find and nurture your own audience and make sure your film has a life.

  Ava DuVernay

  Done, Realizing, Film

  Source: aalbc.com

• I always find it fascinating to ask people, why they've chosen to live their life as an artist? Why be an actor, a singer, an author, a filmmaker? I've heard such inspiring answers to that question.

  Ava DuVernay

  Artist, People, Filmmaker

  Source: aalbc.com

• When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done. It's pretty simple really. I just dive in and start digging. Yes, I'm fortunate to know the in's and out's of a true studio-level marketing campaign. But really, anyone who is diligent and well-researched can pull it off too. Its easier for me, but it doesn't make it impossible for others.

  Ava DuVernay

  Simple, Grease, Marketing

  Source: aalbc.com

• I think it's a wonderful time to be a black woman who makes films. It's a good time to be an artist period. Traditional models of making and consuming art are breaking down and being rebuilt. I find that to be incredibly exciting as a filmmaker and film marketer.

  Ava DuVernay

  Art, Thinking, Black

  Source: aalbc.com

• I'm making and marketing my films, by any means necessary, and enjoying life while I do so.

  Ava DuVernay

  Mean, Enjoy Life, Marketing

  Source: aalbc.com

• Working full-time as a filmmaker has been a dream come true.

  Ava DuVernay

  Dream, Dreams Come True, Filmmaker

  Source: aalbc.com

• I know that there are a lot of great women that have gone before me, so it's important to acknowledge them.

  Ava DuVernay

  Important, Gone, Great Women

  Source: thesource.com

• I'm not to say that my male counterparts do, but certainly, it feels very special to me because I know that so few women have had the opportunity to do what I'm doing, so I'm thrilled by it every day.

  Ava DuVernay

  Opportunity, Special, Males

  Source: deadline.com

• I know how to make films and now I'm able to make films with the resources and the tools that match my imagination, and what filmmaker doesn't want to do that? I feel very fortunate to have that. I don't take it for granted.

  Ava DuVernay

  Imagination, Tools, Want

  Source: deadline.com

• There's no reason not to employ, seek out and take a chance on a woman filmmaker that you might not have been looking at her direction. She's not done it before because you've not given her the opportunity to do it before, and I'm just happy that folks like Jessica Jones' Melissa Rosenberg and folks like Ryan Murphy are also embracing this idea.

  Ava DuVernay

  Opportunity, Ideas, Done

  Source: deadline.com

• On my very first show, my partners in it, Oprah Winfrey and her network, and studio, Warner Horizon, who doesn't get enough credit, said, "Lady, we're going to let you call the shots the way you want to."

  Ava DuVernay

  Horizon, Credit, Want

  Source: deadline.com

• I think there are a lot of people in this industry that have the ability, that have the position, they have the opportunity, they have the privilege to call the shots and could do it too.

  Ava DuVernay

  Opportunity, Thinking, People

  Source: deadline.com

• If you have the ability to do something, you should do it.

  Ava DuVernay

  Should, Ability, Ifs

  Source: deadline.com

• What we tried to do in 13th was get to the bottom of that. What were they motivated by? But certainly the attention that the Attorney General's office paid to it allowed for there to be some dialogue across the aisle that I think were the first steps then in change.

  Ava DuVernay

  Thinking, Office, Attention

  Source: deadline.com

• I feel like it had an impact, in that it started the attention that has been paid to what was happening. It started to get us into this whole conversation about prison reform, the whole bipartisan dialogue that's been happening over the past five, six years about this, where you have a Van Jones and a Newt Gingrich, and you have the Rick Perrys and so forth getting up and talking about the need to reform.

  Ava DuVernay

  Past, Impact, Talking

  Source: deadline.com

• Folks can look at this issue and read it and it can feel like medicine, it can feel epidemic. We wanted this to hit people in their gut, and the hope is that by doing that, we can get more people to think more deeply about these issues.

  Ava DuVernay

  Thinking, Issues, Epidemics

  Source: deadline.com

• I soon found I could not talk about that in a vacuum without understanding the historical, cultural, political context, and giving it some legacy and some roots, and so then it just started to have tentacles that just spread out in all these places, and already a vicious project became pretty overwhelming in scope, and so it was a lot of diligent, day-to-day fighting with the footage, trying to get it down to a place where it was manageable and emotional.

  Ava DuVernay

  Fighting, Emotional, Roots

  Source: deadline.com

• When I went out to shoot for the first time, I thought this was going to be about the prison industrial complex, purely about prison for profit and the ways in which there's an industry making money and profiting off punishment.

  Ava DuVernay

  Punishment, Firsts, Way

  Source: deadline.com

• A lot of work was done with one of my best friends and editor, Spencer Averick, who's edited everything I've ever made from the very, very first documentaries; the very, very first films I made were docs, so we learned the form together.

  Ava DuVernay

  Editors, My Best Friend, Together

  Source: deadline.com

• The traditional ways to make a film, the traditional ways to share a film, have all collapsed. There are no gatekeepers, per se, any more, and anything can be done. Truly, I feel that.

  Ava DuVernay

  Done, Way, Film

  Source: deadline.com

• More people have seen 13th on Netflix than have seen all my films put together between the Sundance winners and Selma, and the whole international distribution of film.

  Ava DuVernay

  People, Together, Netflix

  Source: deadline.com

• Netflix represents, as well as all the streaming services, something that I've been talking about being so important to inclusive voices around films.

  Ava DuVernay

  Talking, Voice, Important

  Source: deadline.com

• I mean, if this [film Age of Trump] wasn't on Netflix, it would be playing at some lovely art house theater on the West Side once or twice or for a week or maybe two weeks if I was lucky and then it would go away, and I'd be lucky if I could sell the DVDs off my website.

  Ava DuVernay

  Art, Mean, Two

  Source: deadline.com

• For far too long, independent voices have been relegated to places where these ideas are not seen on a mass level.

  Ava DuVernay

  Independent, Ideas, Voice

  Source: deadline.com